top of the queue

The Seattle Times called it “A tough sell that gets respect at Sundance”, also noting the local economic effect of landmark films which put a location “on the map”. IndieWire movies calls it “one of the most beautiful films of the year” and noted that “without sensation” it steps back to a “non-traditional” viewpoint and concludes that “Devor makes a persuasive, provocative and deeply profound case for tolerance and understanding in the face of the seemingly most incomprehensible of acts”. OC Weekly film says, “Zoo achieves the seemingly impossible: It tells the luridly reported tale of a Pacific Northwest businessman’s (who may have actually been an engineer for Boeing) fatal sexual encounter with a horse in a way that’s haunting rather than shocking and tender beyond reason.”[ Similar views were expressed by the L.A. Times (“remarkably, an elegant, eerily lyrical film has resulted”) and the Toronto Star, “gorgeously artful … one of the most beautifully restrained, formally distinctive and mysterious films of the entire festival”.

Other reviewers criticized the film for breaching “the last taboo”, or for sinking to new depths: “More compelling than the depths of man’s degeneracy is our cultural rationalization of ‘art,’ whereby pushing the envelope is confused with genius and scuttling the last taboo is seen as an expression of sophistication.”